I know Alter Aeon allows botting with some set rules to keep things flowing smoothly. I stumbled across this info the other day when I was thinking about allowing the same in my game. For right now, through Alpha, I'll be allowing it in my game, and possibly further down the line, (Looking at the way Aeon handles it, I think it's a high probability I will handle the same way.)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of a bot is that it is a scripted character that just runs around and kills things or crafts with automation so you aren't even really playing. My question is this: Why even play if you are using a bot? I'm unsure any game would allow such activity, but then again, perhaps they do, oddly enough.

I see. So more of a programmers perspective as opposed to game playing. Sort of trying to find the exact method to get the system to work?

Technically you could say that for some games writing a bot is more meaningful than playing the game in the traditional manner.

Have you considered how many hours people put into MUDs just to level up? Time that could been put to learn something more useful.

In some MUDs the game is mostly about repeating the same set of commands {kill npc, loot npc, wear equipment} until you get to a certain level where you have completed the game. Not far from Progress Quest. There is a lack of meaningful play as it is mainly about repetition and often you learn very little from it. I think you would learn more from coding/building the game or making a bot.

Technically you could say that for some games writing a bot is more meaningful than playing the game in the traditional manner.

Have you considered how many hours people put into MUDs just to level up? Time that could been put to learn something more useful.

In some MUDs the game is mostly about repeating the same set of commands {kill npc, loot npc, wear equipment} until you get to a certain level where you have completed the game. Not far from Progress Quest. There is a lack of meaningful play as it is mainly about repetition and often you learn very little from it. I think you would learn more from coding/building the game or making a bot.

Its a matter of perspective I suppose. If the rules state that botting isnt allowed, it needs respecting, but of course, you are looking for a botting game openly, I am just responding to your comment above.

At the end of the day, a MUD is where players play together, and bots tend to be bad company in an MMO and can wipe an area cleanly and efficiently which can affect the 'player at keyboard' experience. A bot can also tirelessly level more than a player and is therefore an advantage not everyone can share.

WoW is the same thing over and over to level, but if you are caught doing it you can kiss your account goodbye, and the person who wrote the botting scrupt for WoW had his life pretty much destroyed for his 'experiementation in AI programming'. Of course he was stupid enough to take them to court when he could have just skulked quietly away.

There are other ways to experiement with AI that doesnt impact real people and their game playing though, write an Eliza program is always a great start.

Its a matter of perspective I suppose. If the rules state that botting isnt allowed, it needs respecting, but of course, you are looking for a botting game openly, I am just responding to your comment above.

At the end of the day, a MUD is where players play together, and bots tend to be bad company in an MMO and can wipe an area cleanly and efficiently which can affect the 'player at keyboard' experience. A bot can also tirelessly level more than a player and is therefore an advantage not everyone can share.

That's also part of the challenge in making a bot: How to make it respect other agents(players, bots). Just not a bot can go bad - there's definitely bad players too.

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WoW is the same thing over and over to level, but if you are caught doing it you can kiss your account goodbye, and the person who wrote the botting scrupt for WoW had his life pretty much destroyed for his 'experiementation in AI programming'. Of course he was stupid enough to take them to court when he could have just skulked quietly away.

Maybe he thought that what he did wasn't wrong and "stupidly" took a stance for his beliefs? If he got his "life pretty much destroyed" like you say then it sounds as if the company behind the game did more damage than his bots ever could do.

You know what is really scary? If you take a look at World of Warcraft on xfire and look at the graph you see that totally(those with xfire atleast) people spend about 200.000 hours per day on WoW. Multiply it by 1/(365*24) you get that a bit above 22 years are played away per day on WoW. Hopefully a lot of that is afk time .

If you like botting, you'll probably find this game an exhilerating experience.

It's good that you're opening looking for a game to run bots on, instead of just going and doing it on someone's game where it's not considered appropriate. You win ethical points.

From the screenshot on the website that looks similar to ProgressQuest. The website also links to PQ so I assume it aims to be in the same genre. There doesn't seem to be much if any interactivity which unfortunately makes it a difficult place to experiment with bots on.

You know what is really scary? If you take a look at World of Warcraft on xfire and look at the graph you see that totally(those with xfire atleast) people spend about 200.000 hours per day on WoW. Multiply it by 1/(365*24) you get that a bit above 22 years are played away per day on WoW. Hopefully a lot of that is afk time .

'Eh. Or there are just a lot of players. That would average out to one hour each if there were only 200,000 players of WoW. I'm not a player of the game myself, but as far as I can find on the internet, WoW has 9,000,000+ subscribers. Sure-- not all of them log on every day-- but still, it averages out to be not that much time per person.

Maybe he thought that what he did wasn't wrong and "stupidly" took a stance for his beliefs? If he got his "life pretty much destroyed" like you say then it sounds as if the company behind the game did more damage than his bots ever could do.

What have beliefs got to do with agreeing to an EULA which states clearly that botting is not allowed? You dont get into WOW without agreeing to it, you dont get a single update with agreeing to it and so on. Its their IP, and their rules and he broke them to make money.

he was originally up for infringment of copywrite which can carry.. what.. between $500 and £35000 dollar fine? He countersued as he seemed to think (I believe) that as his program existed in memory and didnt alter any code it was ok.

It went to high court which didnt need to happen.. and the court found him guilty and he was sued for $6 million as he was in breach of the license, and his program copied parts of the game sourcecode so to avoid a system called Warden.

So the lesson, if you want to exercise your "beliefs" to make a bot for SOMEONE ELSES GAME, check the small print

Invariably the game developers / programmers have put a hell of a lot more time into the game that the Botter and what gives them the right to decide it allright to automate the game?

Botters are what made me quit playing Final Fantasy XI. I just couldn't beat the bots to the shop because I actually had to look at the time. Even with an alarm on, the bots would beat me to the shop and buy the best things. I couldn't even buy things I didn't want to make money off of. I would have to go to the auction house and pay for the marked up price. Bots also dominated the fishing to the point where I felt like I had to run a bot to compete. At that point, I just quit the game. There wasn't any point to ME actually playing. (I hear that they fought off the bots in the next few patches, but it was too late for me.)

However, I do respect what you're saying and what you're trying to do, Aeren. You respectfully asked for a MUD that encourages botting, and you're basically wanting to make something that can interact in a way that players cannot detect. To really accomplish something with that, you need actual players around to SEE how they interact. Unfortunately, games that have a lot of players for you to experiment with usually don't allow botting because most players don't like to interact with bots. (Bots are almost always more efficient than a player in whatever they're allowed to do besides role-playing, and when role-playing, bots are worse than the worst role-player. At least the worst role-player might make something interesting happen!)

Anyway, there's plenty of games that allow scripting, though. I could recommend several of those including MMOs. Some scripts are pretty freaking complicated. Would you be interested in that instead of botting?

What have beliefs got to do with agreeing to an EULA which states clearly that botting is not allowed? You dont get into WOW without agreeing to it, you dont get a single update with agreeing to it and so on. Its their IP, and their rules and he broke them to make money.

Do you read all EULA's and follow what's written in them? Sometimes I try to read some of the game EULAs that come with games I buy because it is an interesting read. Often what is written in them can be quite weird to say the least. I heard of one game who's EULA actually demands you to phone the publisher if you don't agree with it. On a number that might be a toll number, too . Could people who start the installation get sued if they don't phone the company to say they disagree? Would you have phoned them?

Of course I am no lawyer so it is hard to say what is written actually means. My interpretation might be completely wrong.

They make games that target pretty much ordinary people - and often very young people - that come with EULAs that often aren't read and if they were read probably would need legal expertise to actually understand.

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Invariably the game developers / programmers have put a hell of a lot more time into the game that the Botter and what gives them the right to decide it allright to automate the game?

That's breaking the rules of the game. Something the players who do could be banned for.

In my opinion it is pretty simple. If a big company sends a C&D to you it doesn't matter if you are innocent or not. You have little choice but to cease operation because you have much more to lose.

Botters are what made me quit playing Final Fantasy XI. I just couldn't beat the bots to the shop because I actually had to look at the time. Even with an alarm on, the bots would beat me to the shop and buy the best things. I couldn't even buy things I didn't want to make money off of. I would have to go to the auction house and pay for the marked up price. Bots also dominated the fishing to the point where I felt like I had to run a bot to compete. At that point, I just quit the game. There wasn't any point to ME actually playing. (I hear that they fought off the bots in the next few patches, but it was too late for me.)

I didn't realize bots were such a big issue . On the MUD I played we actually had a rule against bots for quite a while, but later we dropped the rule. Then again the game was small and barely had any trading between players.

I'm not generally fond of most bots, but rather than ban them I've introduced features to make them less worthwhile. A few people do bot, but they mostly do so for a specific purpose unrelated to in-game progress - for example there's a bot that records and replays PK results and chat logs, one that used to offer an auction service, one that offered crafting and transportation services, and at one point there was even a newbie guide bot. A couple of people have also expressed an interest in creating shopkeeper bots.

I think that botting would be pretty cool in combination with player-designed mobs, as players would effectively be creating custom AI for their monsters. It could even end up as a CRobots-style minigame, where players compete to see who can design the most dangerous and tactically cunning monsters. The most successful mobs could then be used within the main game.

IMO botting isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just depends on what form it takes. If you can channel that creativity into something productive, I think it could really add to the flavour of a game - in many ways it could even be viewed as another form of player-generated content.

I didn't realize bots were such a big issue . On the MUD I played we actually had a rule against bots for quite a while, but later we dropped the rule. Then again the game was small and barely had any trading between players.

Maybe I will play with AI offline instead.

No need to do that. I think a few posters gave some game links to games that allow bots. So have at it. Just because some don't, doesn't mean you have to quit.

Do you read all EULA's and follow what's written in them? ...Of course I am no lawyer so it is hard to say what is written actually means. My interpretation might be completely wrong.

This is what is called fine print. The only reason for it is so that you cannot sue the company when you disagree with your account loss. They have to be very specific and detailed in order to cover all scenarios. No, you don't have to read it, you just have to understand that you can be removed from a game for breaking rules. No big deal.